If only it were this easy for FOX News to fire Glenn Beck. Still, I'll take progress wherever I can get it.

Arizona FOX affiliate KYCA fired Steve Blair today over the mural controversy painted on a wall at Miller Valley School. Actually, he wasn't fired over the controversy. He was fired for creating the controversy.

When asked about what his objections were to the mural, he replied:

"Number one, it was defacing a public building of a historic nature on one of the most heavily traveled roadways in Prescott, Arizona without any edification of what the mural was supposed to be, what it stood for, and it's a piece of public art that I don't support. Not there. Somewhere else, maybe yes, but not there.

And based upon the fact that nobody bothered to let the community know what that mural was supposed to depict made it very difficult to buy in on -- um -- what the mission statement of that mural was supposed to be. Plus it was too big, too in-your-face, wrong place, wrong time."

Defacing? Really? That particular verb, especially when taken in concert with what he says about the school mural project in general, really exposes him clearly.

It's difficult to transcribe everything he said, but at some point he listed the other three murals that, with the school mural, make up the Prescott Mural Project as being perfectly acceptable. The site is down under heavy traffic right now, but if it comes back up, you can see all the murals at http://www.prescottmurals.com/. The Miller School project was the last of four.

During the conversation about his confusion on what the Miller school mural is supposed to represent, he said:

"[It] looks like a guy black guy brown guy holding a stick and a big flowers and stuff, what was it supposed to mean? I don't know what it's supposed to mean, I really don't. If it means going green, what does that mean?

Not everything is okay, and not everything should be looked at as "I have to be politically correct...If I don't like public art like the mural, I have the right to say I don't like it...The hard part is where do people draw the line of standing up to what's right or wrong."

"I want somebody to tell me why I should like that. I like that one at the library. I like the one on the parking garage..."

The mural at the library depicts Prescott history from ancient times through modern. The one at the parking garage is entitled "Art for All". You can see some of it here.

Not content to leave it there, Blair continues his rant:

"Should we be able to paint Kumbaya on the side of the Elks theater now instead of renovating it? Put kids and jackals on the side of that building? Should we just unilaterally deface that building without talking to the guys that own it?"

"Why because I don't like it am I being painted as a racist?"

(For reference, the Elks Theater renovation project is another downtown project to restore a historical theater to its halcyon days. )

When asked if he would take back his comments regarding the mural he replied with a flat "No."

He sums it up this way:

Why are we allowing people to deface historic buildings with murals?

That's twice now with the word "deface". While he doesn't seem to have any problem with "defacing" any other building or wall in Prescott, this one alone gives him heartburn. The one with "the black guy brown guy, sticks and flowers."

Prescott started this project in 2001 as part of an overall downtown renovation effort. The murals are funded with money granted by the Prescott Alternative Transportation Center. The mural at the school was selected by the students and faculty and features student's faces in the artwork.

All reactions to art come from the heart. Steve Blair shows his heart as clearly as the children of that school do. I'll answer Blair's question about racism this way: When it's the color of the people on the historic building that you object to, when the message of the mural is as clear and consistent as those who paid to have it painted, you're kidding yourself if you think this is about "defacing public property."

I love our Los Angeles murals. They were painted for the 1984 Olympics and brighten the smoggy landscape of concrete and glass in the city. These murals are a wonderful way to brighten and renovate an aging downtown area. Prescott citizens should question whether this city councilman has their interests or his prejudices at heart.

Update: From a comment by azmtdog:

The Principal of the school and the Superintendent of Prescott Unified School District admitted "We made a mistake". The mural will not be 'lightened'. Some things work out.

Washington, DC - The Supreme Court upheld one part of the Arizona immigration law but struck down other sections.

The part of the law the justices upheld requires police officers stopping someone to make efforts to verify the person’s immigration status with the Federal Government.However...The justices struck down three other parts of the law:

One making it a crime for an illegal immigrant to work or to seek work in Arizona

One which authorized state and local officers to arrest people without a warrant if the officers have probable cause to believe a person is an illegal immigrant

And one that made it a state requirement for immigrants to register with the federal government

The decision was a partial victory for President Obama who had criticized the Arizona law, saying it “threatened to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans.”

(SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico) — Puerto Rico's Gov. Ricardo Rosselló announced Saturday that his chief financial officer and secretary of state will step down following their participation in a private chat that used profanities to describe an ex-New York City official and a federal control board overseeing the island's finances.

The U.S. territory's CFO Christian Sobrino, who is also the governor's representative to the control board, announced he was stepping down via Twitter on Saturday. Its Secretary of State Luis G. Rivera Marín also offered his resignation.

Rosselló later released a statement saying he would let go members of his administration who participated in the chat on a messaging system used by government officials. The release of the chat's contents in local media had led to calls for the governor's resignation.

Rosselló apologized for the comments late Thursday, saying he'd been working 18-hour days and releasing tensions when he called former New York City Council speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito the Spanish word for "whore" and in English told the oversight board to "go f--- yourself" followed by a string of emojis with the middle finger raised.

"Aware that the current environment cannot be maintained, I have communicated to all the other public officials involved in the chat that I will have to dispense with their services and/or their advice," he said in the statement.

He said he would ask Ricardo Llerandi to remain as Puerto Rico's secretary of the interior and Anthony Maceira to stay as secretary of Public Affairs.

"This is a very painful situation for me, as Governor, as a human being and as a Puerto Rican," Rosselló said.

"But I recognize there is no other way out and there is no worthwhile forgiveness on my part that does not include corrections and clear signs of intent to change."

The comments had drawn the ire of many Puerto Ricans who said they were ashamed of his language and of how this might affect the reputation of the U.S. territory, which had already come under scrutiny earlier this week with the arrests of former government officials including the island's education secretary.

Rosselló said late Thursday that he had not yet spoken to Mark-Viverito, who posted a lengthy statement on Twitter that read in part, "A person who uses that language against a woman, whether a public figure or not, should not govern Puerto Rico ...this type of behavior is completely unacceptable."

In the chat, Rosselló wrote that he was upset Mark-Viverito had criticized Tom Perez, chair of the Democratic National Committee, for supporting statehood for Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rican pop star Ricky Martin, who was mentioned in the chat with a homophobic comment, urged Rosselló to step down.

Martin tweeted that the governor "lacks the abilities of a true leader, who inspires, stimulates and guides by example so that our people attain a higher level of life."

Officials said the alleged fraud involves $15.5 million worth of federal funding issued between 2017 and 2019.

They said $13 million was spent by Puerto Rico's Department of Education while Keleher was secretary and another $2.5 million spent by Ángela Ávila Marrero when she was director of Puerto Rico's Health Insurance Administration.

Ávila Marrero was charged along with businessmen Fernando Scherrer-Caillet and Alberto Velázquez-Piñol, and education contractors Glenda E. Ponce-Mendoza and Mayra Ponce-Mendoza, who are sisters.

Officials said there was no evidence that Keleher or Ávila-Marrero had personally benefited from the scheme.

On Thursday, a group of protesters had gathered at Puerto Rico's main international airport to received Rosselló as he cut a European vacation short to address the arrests and the leaked chat.

The protesters then traveled to the governor's seaside mansion where Rosselló spoke late Thursday and demanded his resignation.

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that an injunction barring the Trump administration from enacting new sweeping asylum restrictions for migrants only applies to a portion of the southern border and not the entire country.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said in a ruling that it denied the government’s broader request to reverse a previous decision blocking the policy, but granted it for parts of the southern border outside of the court's jurisdiction.

The decision means the injunction would apply only to California and Arizona along the U.S.-Mexico border, allowing the Trump administration to begin to impose the asylum restrictions in other states.

The court said the government has not made a strong enough case that they were likely to succeed on the merits of their argument, but the lower court that issued the injunction did not establish the need for a nationwide injunction.

The appeals court said that the lower court “failed to discuss whether a nationwide injunction is necessary to remedy the Plaintiff’s alleged harm” and that “based on the limited record before us, we do not believe a nationwide injunction is justified."

While the appeal proceeds, the district court can "further develop the record in support of a preliminary injunction extending beyond the Ninth Court," the court said.

The policy, announced by the Trump administration last month, would broadly end asylum eligibility for migrants who pass through another country on their journey to the United States' southern border with Mexico, but do not attempt to seek protection in those other countries first.

Several advocacy organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, challenged the rule in court.

In the past, federal judges have blocked other attempts by the administration to change the asylum policy.

"The court properly refused to let the new asylum ban go into effect, though currently limited to the Ninth Circuit. We will continue fighting to end the ban fully and permanently," said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the Immigrants' Rights Project at the ACLU.

The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to request for comment.

U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in California issued the preliminary injunction blocking the restrictions at the end of July and the Trump administration had appealed that decision to the Ninth Circuit Court, seeking a stay pending appeal of the case.

The U.S. Supreme Court granted a request by puppetine's administration to fully enforce a new rule that would curtail asylum applications by immigrants at the U.S.- Mexico border, a key element of his hardline immigration policies.

The court said the rule, which requires most immigrants who want asylum to first seek safe haven in a third country through which they had traveled on their way to the United States, could go into effect as litigation challenging its legality continues.

Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented.

The rule, unveiled on July 15, requires most immigrants who want U.S. asylum to first seek asylum in a third country they had traveled through on their way to the United States.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Aug. 16 limited a federal judge's injunction blocking the rule to the nine Western states over which it has jurisdiction including the border states of California and Arizona.

That had left open the possibility that the rule could be applied in the two other border states, Texas and New Mexico.

The American Civil Liberties Union and others who challenged the administration's policy in federal court said it violates U.S. immigration law and accused the administration of failing to follow the correct legal process in issuing the rule.